We need to talk about ideas.

Good ones and bad ones.

We need to learn stuff about the world.

We need an honest, intelligent, thought provoking, and entertaining

review of what the hell happened on this planet in the last seven days.

We need to sit back and listen to the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

Let's just call it the Iron Fist and the Tech Guy.

Joe, how are you?

Good.

Unemployed now.

Unemployed.

I was made redundant.

Last month, and effective as of today,

so

I'm taking the opportunity to go and see family back in Europe,

And sort some stuff out, so I will be active as I can be it's, it's 9.

30 in the morning UK time.

Perfect.

Should be able to get on, assuming I've got a decent internet connection, and

that's the big question.

A tip for you, Joe, take a microphone with you.

Yeah, that's true.

Because somebody who should be here for the 400th episode, Yeah.

who moved from Rockhampton to Mackay, forgot to pack his microphone,

and is now twiddling his thumbs in Mackay, and unable to join us.

In this important episode.

Oh, Scott.

There we go.

So Scott's not with us because he didn't pack his microphone.

It's probably somewhere in a box back in Rockhampton or something like that.

So it's just Joe and I.

There we go.

Episode 400.

We'll just rant away as we do.

If you're in the chatroom, say hello.

Don's already said hello.

David Cox has and congratulated us.

Thank you very much.

Yes, 400.

It is quite an achievement.

And, oh look, initially I wasn't going to, but then in the last half hour

I've cobbled together some thoughts.

A bit of a review of 400 episodes and what I've taken from it.

So, may as well run through it and and tell you what I think.

Because 400, that's significant.

There's not many podcasts running around that have done 400 once a week.

And gone for eight years, so.

That's what we've done here, dear listener.

News and politics, sex and religion.

And people are still

listening, more to the point.

Yes.

Congratulations to the listeners.

Yes, to the listeners.

It's been a marathon.

Good on you for hanging in there.

So, let me put the chat up here so I can see what people are saying.

There it is.

Yes.

So, so yeah, it is a big milestone, 400, and not everybody can get that done.

I was always confident, Joe, right from the beginning, that this

would be a long lasting podcast.

I knew I was going to make 100 or 200 episodes, for sure, so.

Oh, there's plenty to say, isn't there?

There is.

Politics is the gift that keeps giving.

That's right.

Other podcasts that traditionally rely on interviewing people, for example.

It'd be really hard to find 400 people to interview on a particular topic, so,

and just lining them up is tricky, so...

We've had it easy in that sense, that we haven't relied too much on interviews.

Although, I have to say, that the episodes where we have had interviewees have

been some of the better ones, and...

Some of the more enjoyable ones.

Yeah, there's definitely been some interesting interviews.

Yes, so it's all about time, dear listener.

That's just, you know, organizing people, getting the right time,

hooking up and doing it all is tricky.

So...

Anyway I thought it'd be interesting to just sort of think about how things have

changed in the podcast, this podcast, and my thinking, because probably

some of you may think, oh, Trevor's very rigid in his views and he never

changes and he always thinks he's right.

Well, I, I, you were a member of the Labor Party for some of it.

That's right.

I was a member of the Secular Party for some of it.

That's true.

Yeah.

So, So let's so you know, the podcast obviously started with

Scott and myself, and a big emphasis was on sort of secularism.

We were part of the secular party, and it was about trying to promote

secular ideas via a podcast.

But pretty soon, you know, in the first episodes, we were looking at just politics

generally, and You just can't talk about religion and secularism every week.

So, so that was how it started, and so some things haven't changed.

We're obviously still very pro secular.

and anti religious privilege.

I think we've been pretty consistent over eight years on that one.

I was always, from the very beginning, anti expensive submarines and that

was when the bill was only 50 billion.

It's now 368 or something crazy like that.

Cheaper half the price.

But but we've been talking about submarines since the very beginning

on this podcast, arguing about that, always anti submarines.

We did a lot of discussion in the early days about the Trans Pacific Partnership.

I remember.

Mmm.

These are evil agreements where basically governments agree that multinational

companies can come into their countries.

and not have to face any sort of tariffs.

And

sue them for the

banning of tobacco.

Yes, and they have these investor state dispute resolution clauses

so that if a company of a signatory country decides that rules have been

implemented which detract from their business model unfairly, then they can

sue under the Trans Pacific Partnership or under these Free trade agreements.

And you end up in some dodgy tribunal room in Hong Kong or somewhere by

some person who's not a qualified judge and all sorts of nasty decisions

can be made where governments can be told, no, you can't change laws.

You can't change the mining law that might affect the profitability

of an international miner.

And you can't, you know, they tried to argue that we couldn't change our tobacco.

Packaging laws, because that would interfere with the profits

of Philip Morris, and it was a unfair restraint of trade, contrary

to the free trade agreement.

So, that was a big topic in the early days.

Hip hip hooray for Donald Trump!

Because one of the first things he did was can the idea of the Trans

Pacific Partnership, put it to bed.

And that's why, and it hasn't come back since Donald Trump, so it was basically

all the way up until Donald Trump, we were talking about that fairly regularly.

And only in recent times we had Clive Palmer with one of his companies, a

local domestic company, which he then domiciled somewhere else, like Singapore,

in order to take advantage of...

I don't

believe that that man would be litigious in any

way, shape or form.

Yeah, so he was pulling the same trick that the tobacco companies did in shifting

a local company overseas in order to use the free trade agreement clauses.

Despicable stuff.

The negotiating of these clauses is done highly secretively.

We never get to see them.

Until it's a done deal, and shock horror, it's always bad for

everybody except multinationals, Joe.

So, that was a big one in the early days.

You mean, you mean citizens, don't you?

What did I say?

Multinationals.

Well, it's good for multinationals and bad for citizens.

No no no no,

citizens multinationals, exactly, multinationals are

citizens don't forget.

Yes, indeed.

Then we had we've always been, I've always been anti bill of rights,

whenever that's cropped up because I don't like the idea of activist

judges being able to decide things.

Bill of Rights essentially.

Always vague and open.

They have to be.

Deliberate, yeah.

So,

are you anti the Constitution then?

Because that's vague and open by nature.

Well, it'd be worse if it had a Bill of Rights in it.

Right.

Even more vague.

So...

Our constitution's not, I was going to say it's not bad, I mean, or

it's activist judges with section, what is it, 113

or 116?

Well, there's not too much that was to do with religion.

Yes, the fact that we missed out

the, With the dogs case.

The, the

word a religion

instead of religion.

Any religion, yes.

That's it, yeah.

Yeah.

I don't, yeah, okay, wasn't a great decision.

Imagine how much worse it would be if it was more open.

You know, one of our problems, Joe, is we really should get rid of the states, and

the whole idea of the constitution was the states agreeing to the constitution,

so that's never going to happen.

I was thinking the other day, I was thinking today, there's something

happening in ACT, where ACT wants to

pass laws in relation to freeing up drug possession,

decriminalising, and of course, the member for your electorate, Joe.

Yes.

He made

a living, he made a name for himself as a...

Copper who wasn't at all in any way, shape or form bent yes,

he has decided, no, we don't need decriminalization.

They're gonna stand in the way of the a c t passing these laws.

Of course, the a c t is a territory, not a state, therefore subject to

control by the federal government.

And I was think to myself, maybe, you know, one day we could face.

The ACT wanting to become a state.

Well, you know, if Friendly Jorders is to be believed

he's got some friends who are making fairly lucrative

business out of it.

Out of, columbian marching powder.

Right.

Okay.

No doubt they are.

But you know what?

I think it'll be impossible for...

the ACT to ever become a state because the other states will look at it and go,

well they're a bunch of liberal lefties, we won't let them have a vote in the

constitution that might be important.

But

also, it was all about Sydney and Melbourne wanting to have the capital

and ACT being an independent third party, so they're not going to let it

become a state with the capital in it,

are they?

No, probably not.

Anyway, they're destined to always be under the thumb of federal rule.

Always pro equal rights and anti special rights on this podcast, at least.

So, always pro gay marriage when that plays out.

No, no, marriage equality.

Marriage equality.

Thanks, Joe.

Always in favour of voluntary assisted dying.

Really enjoyed following how that all progressed.

Pro life organ transplant?

What's that?

Life organ

transplants?

What about them?

Monty Python, meaning of life.

Oh, okay.

Sometimes, Joe, you're just too obscure for me.

Right, okay.

Voluntary assisted dying would be one of the success, you know, the marriage

equality and voluntary assisted dying.

Some of the success stories for our society over the last eight years.

And also

abortion.

Hmm, making that easier?

Yeah,

so legalising it rather than making it a special exemption.

Yes.

I think most states did it in the last few years, didn't they?

Queensland definitely did, I think.

New South Wales Dead, a couple

of others.

Hmm.

So, so yeah in the chat room thank you more Noisy Andrew's in there and

David Ryland's there congratulating us.

Watley the Wizard is there.

Who else is in there?

If you're in the chat room, say hello.

That's good to see.

What else did we talk about?

I was always very wary of the voice.

I think it was way back in episode three, we flagged that Noel Pearson

had run this idea up the flagpole and I was, at that point, not a fan.

Remained so ever since.

So there's a list of things that really haven't changed.

Opinions have been pretty much the same as what they were when we

started and you know, have I changed my mind about anything in eight

years, or thoughts, or whatever?

I was talking to a Paul from Canberra about this the other day.

I'd say I've softened towards Muslims.

I would have...

Muslims or Islam?

Well, both, really.

I think I've softened to them.

I pretty much would have, previously, eight years ago had them at a different

level of distaste to Christianity.

Maybe Christianity has just deteriorated to the level where Muslims are.

That's possible.

Yeah, but I think, yeah, certainly not as harsh on Muslims and Islam as I was.

There hasn't

been as much Islamic terrorism in Western countries recently.

Yeah.

Okay, previously I would have been quite libertarian, in line with the Twelfth Man.

But I've developed a greater willingness to constrain individualism

where it detracts from the overall benefit of the community.

So, Twelfth Man and I, of course, had many arguments over free speech, cake

baking, and Israel Folau, and the Twelfth Man would have been arguing a

lot of the time about the freedom of the individual to do what they want,

and I started to, initially in the early days, I would have been along the same

lines, but then I shifted more to...

Collective responsibilities, I would say.

So, I think that was a significant change in the way I viewed the world.

You changed in that way at all, Joe?

I was, historically,

I believed that hate speech should be limited.

And then I listened to Christopher Hitchens speech at somewhere in Canada.

Where he argued that actually it wasn't the freedom to speak your

mind, it was the freedom to hear an opinion that was different from yours.

And that the only way that you are ever going to...

make a good decision is to hear arguments that go against your current position.

And therefore, it's less about the freedom for me to spout hateful material

and much more about having my ideas

challenged.

I sort of look at it these days where there's a lot of restrictions on

speech, defamation, financial advice.

You can't give financial advice, good or bad, unless you're registered.

And that's a good law because people can lose a lot of money and

suffer a lot of pain from shonks giving financial advice who aren't

qualified and who aren't regulated.

So we, we stop people saying things like financial advice that

can hurt people and communities.

And then we have this issue of people who are wanting to, you know, advise against,

you know, vaccines and things like this, where arguably that can also cause a lot

of pain and problems for a community.

And trying to define a difference between those two, It's not always easy.

So, you know, in eight years ago, I would have said, let them say whatever they

like and people have to sort things out.

I'm certainly would be more at this stage in my life of going,

let me find a way to stop them.

Let me find a way to argue they should be stopped, would be my initial thoughts.

I, I, I, no, I'm, I'm happy to let them speak.

I just want the ability to You stick up a huge banner over their

heads saying this is a lying liar

who lies.

Yes.

So anyway, that's a change.

Let me think.

Also I was previously unaware of Boomer Privilege and

Intergenerational Power Plays.

I think I'm just more aware of that now.

Well, that was

because of Paul.

Because being a Boomer.

Yes.

Paul was not your classic Boomer though.

He wasn't a privileged Boomer with it.

No, no.

That was kind of a joke.

Yeah.

Previously unaware of the extent of US imperialism, and previously I would

have blamed poor countries for their corrupt, dysfunctional governments

without considering outside influences.

I would have probably been going, you stupid people, just get

your shit together, why can't you just organise yourselves?

And now I'm far more aware of the context.

No, I,

I...

I long found it ironic that the U.

S.

was lecturing Western Europe after the Second World War about getting rid

of their colonies whilst desperately creating their own colonies around the

world.

Yes.

So, I certainly, that's an awakening for me.

I would previously have been wary of China.

Like if you look at some of the earlier episodes, we did stories

criticizing the social credit scores or worrying about them.

And also the Belt and Road Initiative.

This was a scheme that China was using in order to foreclose on

poor countries and gather assets.

It was also to

gather votes

at the UN.

Sure.

Yeah.

So, you know, definitely in the early days I wasn't pro China

like I am today, obviously.

So that's a change.

Previously I would have thought Hawke and Keating were good.

Now I'm beginning to realise they were just like another

version of Tony Blair, it seems.

Brought in a lot of stuff that ultimately wasn't great for Australia.

Free market.

Yeah, sold off, selling off stuff.

The way Super was just too good.

And we talked about that whole role with the deal with the union movement, and

Labor not the party, but Labor, the idea of sort of supposedly entering the asset

class and giving up their, their income.

And, you know, things started turning bad for the wage earners at that point,

so, so anyway changed my mind about them so there you go, dear listener,

I do change my mind about some things.

Other thoughts?

would be, Joe, economics is complicated.

Try and show luck.

Yeah.

Currency is complicated and crucial.

Mainstream economic theory has let us down.

Well, the episode

with the modern monetary

theory.

Yeah.

Fascinating.

Yeah.

Stephen Hale.

So, yeah.

So I reckon, dear listener, I've spent a lot of time trying to get my head

around economics and I think it's, Intimately intertwined with US hegemonic

power and not enough is understood about economics because it is so difficult

and Joe, some of the complex, some of the stories, the ideas we do here.

Are not that complex, and people just can't get their head around them.

And economics is a complex one, and so I don't blame people for

not getting their head around it.

It's, it just seems, one of the ways of getting change in terms of our

society will be trying to get the average man to understand, for example,

trickle down economics doesn't work.

But it's so ingrained.

It works perfectly.

The question is, who does it work

for?

That's right.

Not in the way that it's sold.

To the public.

Yeah, true, Joe.

So yeah, economics is complicated.

I quite like Sam Harris still as sort of, one of the podcast guys, but he

has a real blind spot on economics.

He never talks about it.

I think.

We at least try to do that here.

Try and look at the ins and outs of some of these economic questions.

So, some of the things I would like to revisit as I think about what we've

done in the past would be just things to do with human nature the whole

nature and nurture argument, the whole idea of we are sort of our DNA, us

cultural influences that play on us.

And sometimes that culture affects our DNA and our biology and it's

a real intertwining of what we are hardwired with and how that is shaped

and fashioned and changed by culture.

So that's all very interesting.

And meritocracy, we talked about, which is interesting, the whole idea of

human beings we did sort of the fruit flies versus the honeybees story, that

honeybees are social creatures and the whole idea is about the hive, whereas

fruit flies are solitary creatures.

So if you were to sort of talk to somebody about fruit flies, you

would talk about their wings, their legs, what they eat, their daily

habits of an individual fruit fly.

When you talk about honeybees, you wouldn't really be talking so much

of that as the interactions between the bees and how they communicate

and that's the story of honeybees.

And we as human beings are honeybees rather than fruit flies and it's

our interactions in our Social networking and the things we do as a

society that is what makes us human.

Oh, absolutely.

Society is what gives us value.

And this

is always the argument against...

When people, libertarians, talk about taxation being stealing their money.

And,

you know, it's society's money, how much of it should you be allowed to keep?

Because all the value is gathered, is

generated by society.

Indeed.

Yeah.

Those sorts of discussions.

Need more of those.

Haven't talked about them for a long time.

The Psycho Chickens.

I still have it on my playlist.

Right.

It's a great story.

The the Psycho Chickens story.

I just meant the song, but.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

It's a good one as well.

So, we'll revisit Psycho Chickens at some point.

You listening, if you haven't heard the Psycho Chickens story, go on your

app and do a little search in our podcast and see if you can find it.

So.

So there you go.

That's a little review of 400 episodes and what we were thinking about and

how we've changed or not changed.

So, there we go.

You're in the chat room.

Keep saying hello.

We'll just get on to topics now, Joe.

If you're late to the party and you're wondering where Scott is, he

left his microphone in Rockhampton.

He's currently in Mackay, therefore.

He's currently in the doghouse.

In the doghouse, yeah.

So, that's that's where he is.

Don't watch much straight television these days, Joe, but my wife likes watching

Australian Story on the ABC, and they had an episode on Silverchair, a famous

Australian rock out of Newcastle, and you know, they went through the history of the

band and what had happened to them, etc.

And the whole thing with drugs and...

The, the lifestyle of a rock and roll star, Joe.

Mm hmm.

It'd be pretty hard to live that lifestyle and not come a buster somewhere

along the track with, with drugs and that the fame and the money and

you're away from home and the rules...

People throwing

themselves at you.

Yes.

And throwing drugs

at you.

Yes.

And just maintaining normal friendships and...

Mm hmm.

You can easily imagine how people would start off in a rock band as

perfectly normal and end up in a very different place just by virtue of being

a rock star, travelling the world and being offered all sorts of things.

You could easily imagine it.

The culture of, the cultural environment that you're put in is going to have a

major influence on what happens to you.

Yeah, I mean, there

are those that live fast and die young.

Mm.

And then there are those that just keep going and

going and going.

Yes, some of them lucky, some of them well managed.

Some of them quite boring actually.

Yes, some of them quite boring, some managed to do it.

So, you know, I just, as I, because I've been corresponding with somebody

over the voice and just sort of struck me that in this whole voice debate,

we've just got no mention of the potentially negative role of culture

has not come up in these debates.

That all just frustrates me, that culture isn't mentioned.

So, Wadley's coming up with some ideas, Sid Barrett,

Robert Calvert and Lemmy, etc.

These are all people who have successfully avoided drugs, are they?

Is that what he's saying?

And lived a very normal lifestyle?

Or, or the opposite?

Burned out very early.

Oh,

right, okay.

Sid Barrett.

Lost the plot, but I don't know if that was drugs, right?

I think that was just a

mental health condition, right?

Yep.

So, Cliff Richard

though.

Yes.

I mean he got he caught God, didn't he?

He was infected with

that virus.

Did he?

Yes.

Right, okay.

Poor bugger.

A fate worse than a drug overdose.

Anyway during the week, I had a bit of a email, had some

feedback on the the voice episode.

So, oh look, I had one from a guy called Andrew and he

wasn't happy with the episode.

He says...

If you listen back you will find you personally don't demonstrate

why the voice is needed.

You dominated, only seemed to listen if a phrase somewhere said by others

seemed to support your case and you won't like this, you were ignorant.

Further on he said that I didn't want to listen and he said you don't consider

yourself ignorant but listening to the podcast today I hate to see it but say

it, but ignorant you were and yeah.

So he had a bit of a rant at me, I'll just come back to him in a moment

meanwhile Murray Waper, he sent me he started off saying, I found the debate

on the most recent show interesting but disappointing for the yes proponents.

Because you are the most prepared podcaster lawyer training I assume,

I feel I could or should have done more preparation for the show

rather than relying on gut instinct.

See, that's the way to write some feedback, is just throw in a little

compliment to me at the beginning.

Thank you, Murr.

Yeah, the shit sandwich.

Yeah.

Compliment.

That's it.

Talking butt smack.

And then Good

compliment.

And then At the end.

Compliment, and then butt.

And then Yes.

Yeah.

Start off with something nice, at least.

Anyway, Murray's feedback was a little bit confusing to me.

I'm asking him to clarify something there.

Anti US Sentiment said, Impressed by Liam's points.

I'm just voting yes because I want to offer support to a group who have been

displaced and repressed for decades.

Maybe that's virtual signalling, but I'll wear that.

Meanwhile, Mark said, I listened to the Voices section twice.

Some interesting points made on both sides, but I felt that the

no points were more persuasive.

A little bit racist seems like a little bit pregnant, so that

was some of the feedback I got.

Just getting back to Andrew, he did actually then, sort of, after

various emails, give me sort of an apology of sorts for his kind of rough

language to me, so thank you, Andrew.

Apology accepted.

Don

wanted to point out that he's seen a whole bunch of yes adverts recently,

but nobody bothering with no adverts.

And therefore

suggests that maybe the S Camp are scared that the No

Vote's in the lead.

Right.

Well, they should be scared with the No Vote, because it is in the lead.

Yes.

So, yeah.

I guess it depends on the circles that you inhabit as to what age you're saying.

Yeah, I was

going to say the murder rags are all full of and also my friendly...

Neighbourhood Potato wrote

to me recently.

Did he?

Oh, this is Peter Dutton's.

So, dear listener, Joe lives in Peter Dutton's electorate.

Holding it up to the camera.

A little...

Ten reasons to say no.

Right, there we go.

So, I'm glad the, I presume, federal parliament funds are paying for

this.

Oh, sure, he's not paying for it.

No.

It comes out of some electoral allowance or other stuff.

And

go to riskyvoice.

com for more information

about...

Is that what they call it?

Riskyvoice.

com?

Yeah.

And

this is the sad thing, there are shit reasons to vote no, and there

are reasonable reasons to vote no, and the right wing of parliament seem

to have peaked on the shit reasons.

Yes.

And I'd like to see...

People commenting in the no camp, being a bit more aware that there are actually

people, sorry, people in the yes camp, being a bit more aware that there are

people in the no camp who have got other reasons that are perfectly legitimate

and we just weight things differently.

Yeah, I mean, I can't,

who's, who's the senator who was in the Greens and left?

Lydia Thorpe.

Yeah, I, I, you can't accuse her of being anti black.

And she, she's voting no because she feels it doesn't go far enough.

Yes.

So I, I have seen some recognition of that, that there are those in the no camp

who feel that that this is a time waster.

This is a make white people feel good whilst doing absolutely nothing.

So I know Marsha Langton got into all sorts of trouble about whether she

was sort of calling people racist or not.

As I see it, they tend to paint people with the same brush.

They talk about the no campaign without taking the time to say, okay, there

are some other people out there who are voicing non racist objections to this.

Leaving them aside, blah, blah, blah, but you don't see

that sort of thing, that's...

And I

have to say the vocal no campaign, the people who've been pushing it, have

been trotting out misinformation almost

certainly.

Of course, yep, yep, the whole thing, not enough detail, blah, blah, blah.

There are other people who are like us, who have different reasons that we

feel illegitimate, and we sort of...

I think just as, if you're in the public making this argument, you've

got to be really careful to avoid the basket of deplorables situation.

I don't think enough care is being taken to avoid making that mistake

and I think there's a lot of people who are feeling they've been labelled

deplorables and they're not A little bit of extra nuance would have been nice.

Yeah, and also the feeling as well, some people, if they feel excluded,

if you're generally left leaning but feel that you are kicked out because

you have concerns about something that if the other side is willing to

embrace you then possibly you will move to the right and say, well at

least these people will listen to me.

I've got some other material I was going to use,

Joe, but I think I'll save it.

Here, listen, I've, so I prepared a bunch of notes for last week that I've been

holding off on and cause I was really just saying to Liam, well, what's your

arguments and let's just deal with those.

And so I had a lot of stuff that never got touched because it wasn't

really stuff that Liam had raised.

Next week is my birth, my daughter's birthday and I'm cooking dinner

and dessert on Tuesday night.

So I think I might, during the week, just.

Do a rant on some of the other notes that I've got, and so the bits that I was going

to talk about in this one particularly of stuff that had come, that I'd come across

because of this interaction with Andrew, I will leave for that episode, I think.

So, I think that would be the way to deal with that.

Right, essential polls.

Ah, Joe, currently, ah, let me just share the screen here.

I'll do it this way.

That's going to be the best way.

Maybe?

I should be able to switch in a second, or where is that?

Share screen, sorry, got the wrong one.

Coming up, dear listener, there it is.

So, let's go back to, this is the latest essential report, and let's just go to

the overall trend, which is the no vote.

For essential is 52%, and the yes vote is 42 and the undecided 9%.

So it really seems, Joe, that according to the polls, there's

no way back for the yes votes.

It would be something quite extraordinary for the yes vote.

I,

yeah, I mean, don't forget, Brexit was polling as not gonna happen and

Trump was polling as not gonna happen.

So I'd be careful with the polls, but did.

Well, okay, Trump actually lost the overall vote, so the

poll was actually correct.

In regards to overall sentiment on Trump, but it just happened

he got the right states.

And I think Brexit, wasn't Brexit, weren't there Brexit polls showing

that a Brexit decision was likely?

I'm not sure.

I mean, I think it was also the people didn't feel that they could say

that they were going to vote Brexit.

Yes.

Whereas I think people don't feel that they can't say that they're

going to vote no to the voice.

I think people feel more, more free

to say that.

So, so anyway, that's where it's sitting in terms of the central poll.

And what else was in here that might've been interesting?

Attitudes to the referendum.

So do you agree or disagree with this statement?

I've had discussions with other people about the referendum.

What's that?

50, 61 percent of people would say they've had discussions with

other people about the referendum.

And then 39 percent would say that People I know don't seem to

want to talk about the referendum.

And 27% would say they've had disagreements with

people about the referendum.

Oh, it's interesting.

It came up at work with people undecided and, and wanting to hear

a potted version of the arguments.

Mm-hmm.

. And I was surprised.

I, I dunno if everyone's received them, but I've received from the a e C.

Here's what the text is going to be, here's what the yes vote are saying,

here's what the no vote are saying.

Right.

Which at least summarized it.

Mm hmm.

Whether it was the full argument, at least you could pick it up.

Read the article and get a a feeling of why people were saying

yes and why people were saying

no.

Yeah, so, so, it's, yeah, it's looking to be quite extraordinary

for the yes vote to get up.

We'll see how that pans out.

Back on the Greens, Guy Rundle was writing in Crikey.

So, to do with this housing fund, the, and sort of...

The Greens got another billion dollars, Joe, so they improved the

deal and so you might remember, dear listener, that the Greens held

off agreeing and got two billion.

They

sabotaged the wonderful plan that Labor was agreeing

to.

Correct.

Which was the maximum that could possibly be spent, so they got two billion.

And now they've got an extra billion.

So by holding off and they've agreed to, to to this latest arrangement with labor.

So good work on the greens part for mm-hmm.

Sticking to their guns.

Guy Rundel writing says the green's got another billion.

Labor is now going out of its way to present as pro business On

Radio National Breakfast a week or so ago, finance Minister Katie

Gallagher praised Jennifer Westcotts.

Outstanding leadership of the Business Council of Australia, honestly.

You're, you're the Labor Finance Minister, and you want to start praising

the Business Council of Australia, and in particular, Jennifer Westacott.

It's hard, you know, she's the cheerleader for, you've

got to pay people this.

So, so obviously, Jennifer Westacott's been advocating for above CPI raises,

and that's why Labor are praising her.

It's just, so, as Guy Rundle says, Labor's going out of

its way to appear pro business.

And he describes Westcott describes this as a gutless celebration of anti

worker forces if ever there was one.

Meanwhile, the various disputes around labour protection moves are

understood as disputes between friends.

Business knows that the union movement is now a funds management

outfit with an attached employee management service called the ACTU.

That sounds about right.

Such a good turn of phrase.

I wish I could write like that.

And the Greens have thus been rewarded for their political courage in holding

out on the Housing Bill, suffering the culminy of voting with the Coalition.

In the Senate, they showed up Independent David Pocock as inexperienced and weak.

Pocock voted for the initial half, and then had to scramble to get on the Greens

side when the party won the first 2 billion of actual money for the fund.

And having then urged the Greens to vote for the bill after that, he will

now have to adjust his position again to welcome the next billion they got.

Good points.

Hmm.

He says, Guy Rundle, the Greens have used their swing position in the Senate

to become the de facto opposition at a certain level of politics at least.

So, there we go, Guy Rundle, the Greens.

In the chat room, Alison's there.

And her mum, Bev.

On Alison what else?

I've got a clip here.

Have, have, have you ever heard of Tim Gerner before?

He does.

Does he pull silly, silly faces?

Don't know.

It's a

sport in the uk.

Gurner is pulling silly

faces.

Is it?

Yes.

There you go.

So he's a property developer and c e o who, well, wealthy name.

Okay.

And he had some thoughts on what's wrong with Australia.

Let me find video clip of him talking.

Some of you may have seen this guy.

So, really, when the arguments come about whether we need a wealth tax or not, all

we need to do is just play this clip.

Here we go.

I think the problem that we've had is that we've, you know, we have, people

decided they didn't really want to work so much anymore through COVID, and that

has had a massive issue on productivity.

You know, tradies have definitely pulled back on productivity.

You know, they, they have been paid, paid a lot.

to do not too much in the last few years and we need to see that change.

We need to see unemployment rise.

Unemployment has to jump 40 50 percent in my view.

We need to see pain in the economy.

We need to remind people that they work for the employer,

not the other way around.

I mean there is a, there's been a systematic change where employees feel

the employer is extremely lucky to have them as opposed to the other way around.

So it's a dynamic that has to change.

We've got to kill that attitude and that has to come through.

hurting the economy, which is what the whole global, you

know, the world is trying to do.

The governments around the world are trying to increase unemployment to

get that to some sort of normality.

And we're seeing it.

I think every employer now is saying it.

I mean, there is definitely massive layoffs going off.

People might not be talking about it, but people are definitely laying people

off and we're starting to see less arrogance in the employment market.

And that has to continue because that will cascade

across the cost balance.

I think we need to see less arrogance in the employer market.

And he's a living example of why we should eat the rich.

Heh heh.

Ah.

Those arrogant workers.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah, so.

It's, it's

strange, I did Management Theory years ago at TAFE.

Mm.

And it was very much, your manager is there to enable you to do your job.

Yes.

The manager isn't there to tell you what to do, they're there to enable you,

because you're the worker of the person

who is the productive one.

Yes, well, there's just too many arrogant workers out there.

I mean, the guy was just repeating, what is reserve bank policy?

We've talked about this.

I think it was it the Phillips Curve or something like that

that we were talking about, Joe?

I don't

remember the name, but I certainly remember the whole, yeah, we have

to keep unemployment at a certain

percentage.

Right.

Otherwise inflation's gonna go through the roof.

Yeah.

Joe, I've got this great tool now, called the Transcript Search Tool.

You did say, yes.

Yes.

So I can tell you now that we use the word Phillips in episode 374 and episode 350.

Quickly, like instantaneously, lines go through the transcript and Here's what

we had to say about the Phillips Curve.

Hang on.

And this is all part of a theory called the Phillips Curve.

And the problem with that is that around the world they are

looking at unemployment figures.

We go on.

How cool is that?

Like, you really can find stuff really quick.

The other thing we mentioned was a guy called Phillips Hermans.

But anyway.

So, so now your

spousal arguments you're recording and transcribing, so that you can look

back and see, 10 years ago you said...

That's, you could, it'd be really handy.

I want that in my life.

You said this.

No, I didn't.

I said this.

Where's my, where's my transcript tool?

Yes.

Yeah.

Cause I was playing with it before.

And and I thought when did we talk about chickens on the episode?

And this thing, I'm just going to type in chickens now, Joe.

And I haven't gone all the way back with these.

I think you're going to foul it up.

So, episode 394, we used the word chickens.

What did we say?

When they had to kill the chickens they were looking after.

Hang on, there's another one.

Birthrights.

Yeah.

So...

The, the exam question...

Hang on.

Anyway, I actually gave that to Liam as part of his prep to say,

Hey, if you're wondering what Scott was saying about stuff, you can

look through the transcript tool.

Anyway.

All good fun.

Now, where was I?

So yeah, that was, he was just repeating what the Reserve Bank has

been saying is crush the workers and make them feel precarious so that

then wages will bring back serfdom.

Yes, that was it.

So, so that was him and he was just repeating Reserve Bank policy.

So, Why all the fuss, one would wonder.

What else have I got here?

I've also got Anybody out there a fan of Joe Rogan?

Please tell me you're not.

So, he had some stuff.

Joe Rogan, many years ago, had some long form interviews with some

very interesting people, and some long form interviews with some total idiots.

And the problem was he seemed to not know the difference between them.

Yeah.

But he

has since ignored the decent people and gone full tilt with

the idiots.

Yeah, and he's a product of his culture, and if you grow up in

America, and beating the shit out of each other, and you're worth 500

million, then you end up with Brain

damage and you with $500 million, these are the things that you'll sign.

Yeah, but here's the thing.

One of you should do that, one of you should take care of the children.

Like this idea that both parents should get maternity and paternity leave

at the same time is a little weird.

I don't think so.

You don't think so?

I don't.

Why?

Only because I have a German cousin and they get the shit.

I mean, they get like a, Full year for the woman and nine months for the husband.

That's great.

You want to live in Germany?

Because in America you gotta work.

But here's the thing.

If you have a small business, you're the one who loves

small businesses, okay, right?

No, you

can't take maternity have an employee and this is your, like, your f ing CEO

of your little company or whatever.

And they They're the wife has a baby and the husband's like,

I'm taking four months off.

You're like, what the f are you talking about?

I'm and I'm questioning what, who do you believe should

pay for something like that?

I don't know, but if I was an employer and I had a guy who worked for me, I had a guy

who worked for me who wanted to take three months off because his wife gave birth.

I'd be like, what the f are you talking about, Mike?

Even to support his wife?

Give birth to support his wife while I pay him for free.

Do you understand that this is kind of, most people, when this happens, if

they make enough money, the wife will not work and the father will work.

Right.

And then the wife takes care of the child.

And this is normal.

Yeah.

And then the dad provides support when he comes home.

If you're saying that the man and the woman should both get, like, three

months off, this is a new thing.

Yeah.

Right?

I mean, it's not new in Europe.

But it's We're not in Europe.

This is better.

This is America.

America!

Yeah, well,

exactly.

I, I, I disagree with him that America is better.

Ah, Liam's joined us in the chat room.

Hello, Liam.

You know, I just quickly typed in Joe Rogan.

It says Tanya joined us.

Yeah.

Hello.

Sorry.

Tanya as well.

I just quickly typed in Rogan to this transcript tool.

Joe, we're starting to just repeat ourselves after 400 episodes.

Here's what we said before.

Yeah.

And even Joe, Joe Rogan was one of those, he had some really great people

on and he had long format conversations where you could get deep into the weeds

with some really interesting people.

He also had some complete dickheads on, he would get into the weeds with them.

And I think that...

There you

go, Joe, you're

consistent.

I am consistent.

Amazing.

Yeah, I just find that interesting.

Playing around with that.

Where are we up to?

That was Joe Rogan.

Look, episode 400.

Gotta thank the Patrons.

Couple of recent ones in particular.

From August 2023, Paige and also Damien Van Schneidel.

From 2022, we've got Danny Bull and Obrad Puskarica, Anti US

Sentiment and Mark Lavelle.

From 2021, we've still with us, Tom Stubbings, Rico, Greg P and Shannon Legg,

still with us from 2020 is Matt Dwyer, Sue Cripp, James, Leanne, Ranwyn Wayne,

David Hanby, Virgil, Craig Ball, Shane Ingram, which is, I think, is that Yam?

No.

And then Yam Yam Blue, who is in the chat room, Zambuck, David Copley

and Graham Hannigan, still with us.

From 2019 as regular patrons, John in Dire Straits, who's currently on a cruise

ship by the way, Tony Darko, Camille, Tom Dool and Paul Waper, Alexander,

Alan, Matthew, Craig S, Glenn Bell, Adam Priest, Murray Waper and Andy Dowling.

Still with us.

Who started in 2018?

Peter Gillespie.

Gavin Ss.

David Curtin.

Liam McMan, who's in the chat room.

Good on you.

Liam.

Dominic de Massey.

Madic man.

Ronwyn, who's often in the chat room.

Kain, Jimmy Spud, Tony Wall, and Steve Sins from 2017.

We've still got Allison who's there in the chat room, a Yame, Wao, and Craig and the

sole survivor who started with us in 2016.

Janelle Louise.

People who don't like to do it through Patreon, but have

done it through PayPal, Mr.

T, Anne Reid, Darren Giddens, Dave S from Cairns, and Noel Hamilton.

Thank you to all those people.

There are expenses with this podcast, dear listener.

The website, the mp3 hosting, this re stream service that I'm using,

Descript to get rid of ums and ahs, Crikey subscription, an RSS feed reader

that I subscribe to, the courier mail that I pay 10 bucks a month for, the

John Menendee blog, which is such a vital input into this podcast.

I send them my 15 bucks a month, something like that.

Caitlin Johnston and an economist called Michael Hudson.

So we do return some of that money to the most valuable.

Sort of, news outlets that we come across in the show notes, there

will be a link to a Twitter link talking about NATO provocation and

all of the people who said from Henry Kissinger downwards that what NATO's

doing is gonna provoke the Russians.

Not a good idea.

It's gonna cause war and huge number of people.

It's all there in a link.

I won't go through them again.

Cameron Leki is a guy I follow on Twitter.

He found this article from the ABC online.

The first part of it reads, Is Huawei's new phone proof China is

gaining ground in the chip wars?

Chinese state media has pointed to Huawei's new smartphone, blah, blah, blah.

Cameron Lickey makes the point.

This is an article by the ABC News, arguably also

state backed, sort of, media.

Mm hmm.

It all depends how you want to phrase things, isn't it?

Would the ABC refer to themselves as state backed media?

Well, are they a tabloid?

Yes.

And, what else have we got?

Terrible stuff happening in Libya, Joe, where there was the same sort of rainstorm

that affected Greece ended up in Libya.

Massive amount of water, which then caused a dam to fall.

Yeah,

apparently the Mediterranean is unusually warm, which led

to effectively a cyclone.

Hmm.

Funny thing happens, dear listener, as you increase the air temperature,

the capacity of the air to hold moisture increases dramatically.

So warm temperatures lead to more moisture in the air, hence rainstorms beyond

previous experience and also snowfall.

Your previous experience because of that.

Do I want to go into it in this episode?

Yeah Another time I think.

After 400, I reckon I can cut this one short at 59 minutes Because it

doesn't really fit in but it's...

Shay

is gonna end up in the shark tank

Yeah, we just can't talk about laser beams in the shark

tank because YouTube will then...

Well, there is that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So there we go That's a quick Episode 400, done and dusted.

400 down, I don't know how many to go.

I reckon good for another 100, at least.

Depends if I can keep the job I've got, which allows me

the time to do these things.

So, if you want to ensure, dear listener, that this podcast goes on

longer than that tell your friends.

It'd be good to have a few more people.

Only get about two.

Trevor's retirement fund needs

a top up.

Exactly.

Because if I, if, if Joe, I end up in your position of losing the job and I

have to get a real one, there's no way I'll be able to do a podcast like this.

Just won't have the time.

It'd be impossible.

So, it's a really good conversion rate actually.

And about podcast is only about 250 downloads.

So to have 50 people contributing out of that is seriously high proportion.

So.

It just shows

the value that you provide, Trevor.

That's right, and the calibre of listener that we have here.

So, tell your friends to listen to the podcast, and let's just

get it a little bit bigger so that if I do need to rely on this...

The problem is, Trevor...

You're

not right leaning enough.

That's true.

If you were more right leaning, you'd have more rich listeners.

That's exactly right.

Donating silly

money.

Yeah, that is exactly right.

The money in these sorts of things is in the right wing sphere.

Absolutely.

That's why who's that idiot Dave Rubin.

Yes.

Yes.

Started off a bit of a lefty, just went increasingly right, right, right, because

that's where a paying audience developed.

Hmm.

There we go.

Well, I, as I mentioned, it's my daughter's birthday.

Hello to Lee at The Gap.

Yes, my daughter does not listen to this podcast.

She knows nothing about it, so I won't hold it against her.

I'll still cook her a birthday dinner.

And I don't think we'll be live streaming.

Well, we won't be live streaming next Tuesday.

I will have recorded something to put out and we'll do that.

Joe, you're in Australia for another four or five weeks, six or seven weeks?

I, I leave the second week of October.

Right.

So three, three, four weeks left.

Right.

And then it'll be haphazard as to whether...

You can get internet connection.

Yes.

Ah, I reckon you'll be able to.

I'm making a prediction that you'll be with us more often than not.

I, I think so.

My audio will be on my headset so it won't be a shiny microphone because...

That's going to be Hassel logging around and it'll be the

laptop webcam, but it's not bad.

I'll talk to you off air about that.

All right.

OK, dear listener, thanks for tuning in for episode 400.

We'll be back next week.

Scott will definitely...

Have received his removalist will have arrived with the boxes, the

missing microphone will be there.

We'll talk to you then, bye for now.

And it's a good night from him.

Marty quit drinking, found religion for a while.

I didn't love that.

To be honest, I preferred him before, he had a sense of humor then.

Okay, number nine.

The man in the sky who controls everything decides if you go to

the good place or the bad place.

He also decides who lives and who dies.

Does he cause natural disasters?

Yes.

Did he cause my mom to get cancer?

Yes.

Did he cause that tree to land on my car last week?

Yep.

Did he kill my dad with that heart attack?

Yeah.

I say fuck the man that lives in

the

sky!